Crawford hits 3rd inside-the-park HR

Posted Jul 20, 2009 by Marc Lancaster

Updated Jul 20, 2009 at 08:28 PM

CHICAGO—Carl Crawford hit his ninth home run of the season tonight, and it didn’t even clear the fence.

The All-Star speedster collected his third career inside-the-park home run leading off the fourth inning against Gavin Floyd and the White Sox, hitting a ball off the wall in right-center and circling the bases with ease before the Chicago outfield could recover.

Center fielder Scott Podsednik went all-out in an effort to run down the ball and crashed into the fence himself. Neither Jermaine Dye nor Carlos Quentin made much of an effort to back him up, and when the ball caromed back to the spacious area where Podsednik normally would have been, no one was there to pick it up.

Crawford didn’t even really accelerate until he was about halfway to second base and still made it home standing up.

Crawford has the last three of the eight inside-the-park homers in Tampa Bay history, the others coming April 13, 2007 at Minnesota and April 6, 2005 against the Blue Jays.

Rey Sanchez, Randy Winn (twice), Chris Gomez and Dave Martinez are the others to do the trick for the then-Devil Rays.